With the increasing computing power that is available for both commercial and private use, there is an increased demand for data transfer on a number of levels. Particularly, the emergence of the Internet and the ability of businesses and individuals to easily communicate with others around the world has created a need for greater speed, quality and capacity than ever before.
Users who are connected to the Internet and other networks may have access to many other users and/or devices which are also connected to the network. At different times, any given part of the network may be in use by a particular pair of devices which are transmitting data between them. While this part of the network is occupied with the transmission of this data, it cannot be used for the communication of data between another pair of users or devices. Consequently, data transfers between some users/devices may be blocked while a data transfer between another pair of users/devices is being performed. This generally leads to increased latency in data transfers and may result in more severe disruption of communications between the corresponding devices.
This problem may be alleviated in part by the use of hardware which provides increased capacity for data traffic. Because each individual data transaction can, on average, be completed more quickly in such a higher-capacity system, the corresponding data stays in the system for a shorter period of time and presents a reduced potential for blocking other transactions. It is, however, usually expensive to replace available systems with hardware which has a greater capacity, so it may be impractical to simply provide greater capacity, particularly in a widely distributed system. Further, once the improved system reaches the limits of its capacity, more hardware or a new technological advance is required to provide even greater data transfer capacity.
One response to the demand for increased performance in data transfers has been the development of optical data transfer systems. These systems use light instead of electrical signals to carry data from one point to another. Optical data transfer systems typically have much greater bandwidth than electrical systems of comparable size and cost, and are capable of providing higher quality signals for data transmission.
While optical data transfer systems may provide advantages over electrical systems, they may also suffer from some of the same problems. For example, the latency of data transfers may be increased as a result of blocking. Further, optical systems may have to be used in conjunction with older, more capacity-limited hardware (including optical hardware) which may not be able to fully utilize the capabilities of the new optical hardware. It would therefore be desirable to provide systems and methods which have high data transfer capacities and which are useful in conjunction with different types of existing hardware.